Saturday, January 24, 2009

It's A New Day

Two weeks ago today I was nervous. At 11:00 that morning I had an appointment with the psychiatrist at the crisis center I had been to the Monday before and given what a treat (NOT) that had been I was hesitant despite the so-called therapist and the apparently competent nurse telling how wonderful this doctor was.

Happily they were right, the doctor was calm, efficient with a kind face. I was also in much better spirits and better able to present myself, which no doubt helped her assessment of me - "You clearly have a good handle on your issues and know what you need to do to take care of yourself". That is very true, I just forget to actually take care of myself sometimes. As we were going over my medication she noted that the therapist (what a peach, again NOT) had written a different one. Smiling, I said, after correcting her three times I gave up. The doctor nodded. In that visit I also learned that my medication had gone generic and would only cost me $4 for a 30 day supply. I was doing proverbial cartwheels for hours about that information. One of the things I had been dreading was figuring out how to pay for happy pills that I expected to run more like $100 a month on no income. Did I mention we are both still out of work?

It has been almost two weeks since I started back on the medication, and a few days on the full dose (side effects required me to build up to the appropriate dosage). Yesterday I noticed that I was feeling happy in a way that had been largely missing for what feels like forever, but in reality has been a few months. The other day I noticed that my food cravings have changed. This was a positive side effect that I remember the strongest from the very first time I went on anti-depressants - I lost my food cravings which are clearly most emotionally driven and some of my appetite. It was an enormous revelation to me as someone who has battled with disordered thinking around food and my weight for the majority of my life. The other day I went to pick up some soda for Her Geekyness and thought "hm, ice cream sounds good". However the reality was that was patterned thinking because I walked away from the ice cream case empty headed. Me, no ice cream! Seriously for those who don't know me in real life, I consider ice cream a food group. I have since bought ice cream to have on hand but I recognized this moment as a sign that the pills are doing something positive.

This morning I got up first and took Puppyman for his morning stroll and damn if it wasn't beautiful out. The sky was all shades of light blue with cloud ranging from wispy white to deep pearl gray. The light was bright despite the sun being largely covered by a band of gray. The trees were bare, their silhouettes looking elegant in the morning light. It was a perfect winter morning except that the recent warm days had melted away the snow. There was a barest suggestion of snow falling, so slight one could think that were seeing things. The air was still and no one else was out but us. Everywhere I looked the sky was beautifully different in it's shading and clouds, the sunlight lit the house and tree limbs subtly.